![]() Habib’s childhood memories are both sweet and heartwarming, yet don’t shy away from the repressive cruelties she’s experienced. If it is the book’s aspect as a queer Muslim memoir that distinguishes it for marketing purposes, it is Habib’s engagement with a range of oppressions that provides its powerful moral compass: patriarchy and sexism growing up racism and bullying upon arrival in Canada. By the book’s later chapters, she’s attending queer dance parties in Tokyo and sex clubs in Berlin and re-engages with Islam through a queer-friendly mosque. Her life has all the fodder of a riveting tale, but it is Habib’s narration of these events – tumultuous family relationships, grappling with both Pakistani and Canadian cultures, and her gradual coming out process as a queer woman – that renders her memoir so powerful. ![]() ![]() From a religious marriage at the age of 16 to coming out as queer in her 20s, there’s a tremendous amount of emotional wisdom packed into each chapter. ![]() The book opens by recounting her childhood as a member of the persecuted Ahmadi Muslim minority in Pakistan, followed by her attempts to fit in as a bullied refugee in Canada. ![]() Internationally renowned journalist and photographer Samra Habib’s memoir We Have Always Been Here is subtitled (and marketed as) “a queer Muslim memoir”. ![]()
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